Well, hello everyone. I have been ever so grateful for a two week spring break this year and at least feel rested and ready to continue with the rest the school year. I have managed to get a jump start on this Blog by sneaking a minute or two at computers but there always seems to be something needing attention- ah here we go- apparently the keyboard at monitor # 12 has been disabled. More later...
Welcome back to the realities of the school day.
Okay now I can concentrate for real!! Dismissal time just after three pm and by 3:15pm everyone had cleared the classroom. A couple of students stopped after school to continue our Hunger Games discussion as you will soon find out was our journal topic of the day.
Homework
I actually didn't set any homework for tonight but a couple of students wanted to complete their maps (the countries of Europe) that we didn't quite get done before the end of the day
A couple seem to be reading their Lit. Circle novels -STILL (I guess I should be thankful that they are reading them!!)
Reminders
Math 7 share the Term 3 Learning Outcome handout with your parents. If you would like a copy of that for home just let me know and I will make some more copies or I can e-mail it to you.
Hi to Hannah and family who might be checking into the Blog.
General Day
It is always uncertain what to expect the first day back after two weeks but things moved along nicely without any issues or drama and we all got through the day unscathed :) Nice to be back.
Daily French- students did a great job with the high use vocabulary and with a bit of assistance managed to understand the three sentences en francais on the board. The first welcomed them back to the last term, the next provided day and date and the third hoped that they had a good spring break.
Spelling Unit 12
this list is the one that was postponed before the break. 12 words will be tested Thursday we are at the j, k, l, and m words: judgment, knowledge, leisure and minute are examples. We analyzed the types of spelling errors that could be likely given the letters and sound combinations. I try to consider some tips and strategies that might help with study and memory. We looked at words called heteronyms (like minute) which are spelled the same but can have different meanings or functions in a sentence. Tomorrow we will follow up with an activity on homonyms and heteronyms (yes, the students giggled at the Greek based word etymology!!)
Journal write: today's topic was to check on the Hunger Games phenomenon- before break the students (particularly the girls) were counting down to the opening of the movie which happened last Thursday at midnight and apparently grossed over 155 million on its opening in North America. My question (that we ended up discussing all day!!!) was whether or not they thought the movie version did the book justice and whether they were caught up in the hype of the marketing strategies or not.
5 of my students saw it at the midnight show where in our small town they devoted three of our five theaters to it. Another 6 or 7 saw it this weekend. So about half of the class (12 of the 25 in attendance today) had seen it already.
According to today's Vancouver Sun the movie has now grossed $214 million.
I wanted them to consider and discuss if they were impressed or if they felt a bit misled by all things Hunger Games. We had some interesting thoughts and the discussion went on longer than I had imagined.
Some students were not at all interested or caught up in the marketing and phenomenon. They hadn't seen the movie and didn't intend to. Some said if they were 'bored' they might wait and see it after or download it. Students who had seen it were disappointed that the movie had not been true to the book and they hands down preferred reading the story. Others were happy with some roles (Katniss) but not others (Peeta). Some stood in line before the movie opening last Thursday and managed to get some actors coming through Vancouver to sign copies of the books and take pictures with them. I am assured by others that Josh Hutchinson lives in West Vancouver - who knew? And so on-
Anyway, one thing I do know is that these students have opinions and brains and that even if they did get caught in the hype (when you are 12 it is difficult not to) they are smart enough to still be able to be thoughtful and critical (without being destructive) of the experience that has been so cleverly marketed to them. And, yes, I have been part of it too in bringing the ploys of the movie industry to their attention. Why do actors make millions? We are willing to pay for everything and anything that is endorsed by the industry be it a movie, a t-shirt, a book highlighting movie stills or a trendy offshoot of the movie world. It is all very interesting and ka-ching, ka-ching (if you'll forgive the bad pun).
Band
Math 7
Today we reviewed our Term 2 learning objectives and achievement.
I shared a couple of paragraphs of a McLean's article about math that I read over the break. I would like to provide the link for you as I found it more than interesting that I had three reactions and I am still thinking about it and reflecting on both the article and my reactions as a parent, a teacher and on a personal level as a former math student myself!! Stay tuned. I need to get my ducks in a row for that one!!
We forged ahead into the learning outcomes for the Third and last term. The students received a handout and have been asked to share it with you. If you would like your own copy just ask.
We have three months and four chapters of Mathlinks7
We will be starting with Circle Geometry (finding circumference and area using pi and formula). Today we reviewed the circumference, diameter, radius etc.
Other than circles, we will be looking at lines and angles, triangles, quadrilaterals, parallelograms to find area and perimeter using metric measurement. With three dimensional figures we will be adding volume (and add science determining density).
This term we will also undertake statistics, working with data and finish the year with fraction operations. If there is time I would like to add multiplication and division of both fractions and integers- these are not in the grade seven learning outcomes but it might be helpful to at least introduce these skills before grade eight math this September.
I returned the students' results on their pre-spring break Ch11 test on Algebra.
FYI 70% pass 30% fail rate
The fail rate is too high (I'd love to get it to a zero fail rate with a bit of effort and care, there is no reason to 'fail') and we will be redoing after a bit of reteaching and refocusing for the students who are struggling with one and two step solving of equations.
Silent Reading
I returned the SRA results of the 2c SRA reading Kit that we had been working on since January 10th. I have some results to share generally but would like to do that later this week as I have just received a couple more booklets today which I would like to assess first.
Socials Map of the countries of Europe- took much longer than I had anticipated. My classroom map kept rolling back up without warning so we ended up completing the activity in the computer lab where everyone could have an updated map of Europe (atlases are older 1989).
At computers we also had the chance to check the latest updates on the Hunger Games ratings and Blogs and $$ revenue etc. We got so busy we forgot to go to the library when it was our exchange time!! I'll see about getting time for library tomorrow. Sorry folks.
After a bit of 'free' time (10-15 minutes) we logged off and headed back to class where we made a valiant attempt to complete the map answers. We will take some time for it in the morning. I'd forgotten that there are a ton of countries in Europe and some I hadn't really heard of- really (how embarrassing) who knew that San Marino was a peninsula and a country in its own right?? And the Vatican is a country- no kidding! The smallest country in Europe. Both are in Italy- what's with that?
I guess Portugal is in Spain and Wales is in England although some would argue not. And Liechtenstein, (really?) on the Austrian/Swiss border.
The day just disappeared and we packed up for afternoon dismissal. Great Monday back. Rest up for another busy day tomorrow.
Have a good night.
Mrs. J.
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